Athena EPIC is poised to serve as a pathfinder for space startup NovaWurks and its sensorcraft architecture, demonstrating a more innovative method for placing remote sensing instruments into orbit faster and more affordably. This approach enables the opportunity to learn from commercial best practices and implement an “all-of-government” approach.

SpaceX early Saturday launched another 28 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit from Florida, days after a short service outage hit the space-based internet provider.

More than 8,000 satellites have been launched this year, as the launch on July 19 marked the first time that number has been reached.